Over the weekend Harvest Festival solidified its place as the best single-day music festival in Australia, bar none. Take a phenomenal lineup with zero filler and consisting mostly of bands who haven’t toured Australia in the last five years, add an idyllic location and a chilled crowd, and take away the organisational issues that plagued last year, and you have basically the perfect day.

This year probably hasn’t quite lived up to the lofty standards of 2011 in terms of album releases yet, but we’ve still seen some real quality and still have much to look forward to in the second half of 2012. Here are my favourite records of the year so far.

Seriously exciting news this morning: finally, the one and only Sigur Rós have announced their long awaited new album. It is called ‘Valtari’, and will be released on May 28th. It will be the band’s first traditional LP release since 2008. There’s also a seven song tracklisting, included below, as is the album’s first single, Ekki Múkk. Fuck yeah.

Contact

I can be reached at andpluckyourstrings@gmail.com. I cannot get around to all the music that I am sent but I will do my best. All music posted here is designed to promote artists, however will of course be removed upon request.